Church news, book reviews, thoughts on spirituality, nudges, and direction, poetry and testimonies. This blog is not updated as frequently as Collecting my Thoughts, where I regularly write.

Monday, February 09, 2009

Do you know your gifts?

This Barna Update on Christians who understand or know their gifts is interesting. Our church a few years back used the Network program by Bruce Bugbee. I scored high in Wisdom and Prophecy and Administration (really didn't understand that one, but suspect is the librarian thing since that's what I did for a career). This part of the Barna Update was interesting:The survey also found that many people who say they have heard of spiritual gifts were not necessarily describing the same gifts outlined in the Bible. Among the gifts claimed that are not among those deemed to be spiritual gifts in the passages of scripture that teach about gifts (Romans 12:6-8, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4:7-13, 1 Peter 4:10-11) were a sense of humor, singing, health, life, happiness, patience, a job, a house, compromise, premonition, creativity, and clairvoyance.

In total, one-fifth of all the gifts cited by respondents (21%) were attributes that do not fit the biblical lists of gifts given by God.